After the successful build of the ‘Vintage Model Works’ RAF Crash Rescue Tender I was asked by Mike Cummings of VMW if I would undertake to build a prototype of their new model with the aim of checking the construction method and the assembly instructions for accuracy before the kit is put into production.

The model is a ‘Thames River Police Launch’ and is based on the original design by Phil Smith for the Veron company, this was a very popular model kit in the late 50’s and 60’s and sold for the princely sum of 43 shillings and tuppence, approximately £2.15 in today’s money but an equivalent cost of £48.50 in 1960.

This design has been updated to accommodate electric propulsion and radio control by Colin Smith, the son of the original designer and it has been re-scaled to be 36” in length where the original was 24” which gives much more scope for detailing and provides more ‘hiding room’ for the drive, control systems and all the associated wiring.

The kit produced by VMW uses the same construction techniques as the original and the materials are a combination of balsa and plywood both of which a laser and CNC cut for precision.

The ply and balsa materials supplied are of very high quality as one would expect from VMW and all the stripwood for the chines, rubbing strakes and deck detailing is included, even the dowel required for the mast is in the box, very comprehensive!
The kit also includes white metal fittings such as the fairleads and stanchions, and the searchlight and horns. The glazing for the windows comes in the kit too.

The instruction sheet supplied is in need of revision as it is largely taken directly from the original as written by Phil Smith and some of the terminology needs updating, for instance the ply bottom and side skins are referred to as ‘strakes’ but I understand that a re-write of the instructions is in hand along with an updated plan showing the best positioning for the motor, prop-shaft, battery, ESC, receiver, rudder and servo.

During construction I have added a few additional pieces of ply or balsa as reinforcement or supports and substituted some balsa parts for ply where I thought a stronger material would be better. I also added some hatches to give access to the wiring at the bow and the rudder & servo at the stern but largely I have not gone ‘off plan’ to any extent.

The pictures show the model in it’s present state (Nov 2018) and is ready for painting and finishing.

Phil Smith, the original designer of the Thames River Police Launch, based the construction on a rigid box structure around which bulkhead formers are fixed to give the hull it’s shape, a design feature of many of the Veron kits.

In the Vintage Model Works kit all the components of this box are laser cut and require no additional trimming before assembly, I have used Titebond 2 aliphatic glue throughout the construction as it bonds wood very firmly and dries quickly too.

I started by joining the edges of the two sheets of balsa that form the base of the box, these were held firmly together with some scrap wood and weighted down on the cutting mat and left to dry.

Meanwhile the box sides were similarly glued together taking care that the two pieces that form each box side are in perfect alignment using the laser etched vertical lines that mark the bulkhead former positions, these were also wedged together and weighted while the glue set.

Once the bottom and sides are dry the ends can be added to complete the box construction, a try-square was used to check the box for accuracy and everything was held together with some ‘push pins’ while the glue set.

As this box forms the foundation of the hull it’s essential that there’s no twist or anything out of square.

This was all done in one evening, clearly the assembly of this kit could be completed quite rapidly if you really wanted too!

With the box assembled and the glue fully cured the next stage is to glue the inner keel parts together and fix it to the underside of the box.
The keel consists of four pieces that need to be jointed whilst on a flat surface, the instructions suggest that the parts are best assembled whilst laid over the plan with a transparent protective sheet between to ensure accurate alignment.
A gap is left in the keel for the prop shaft and this gap is laminated over by some additional keel pieces on either side.
I chose to deviate from the instructions here and fit these pieces after the prop shaft was in place to ensure a snug fit, I have it on order from Model Boat Bits along with the prop and rudder.
The assembled keel is glued in place along the centre line of the inverted box and when dry the bulkhead formers can be added.
The positions of all the formers are clearly marked on the box and the underside formers are added first followed by the side formers and lastly the bow formers, and the assembly set aside to dry.
I’d almost forgotten how easy it is to work with balsa, it takes glue and pins readily and assembling this model is a joy, however, shaping the solid balsa bow blocks to the correct profiles will be an interesting challenge.
But I don’t need to do that for a while yet.

The next stage is to assemble and fit the upper and lower chines to the bulkhead formers.
Each chine is made from three parts that are step jointed together, the instructions recommend using the plan to ensure correct alignment with a protective transparent paper between, however the cutting accuracy of the parts is such that having checked the alignment over the plan I was confident that assembling and glueing them together on the cutting mat would be OK. The upper chines were assembled first and when set were glued and pinned to the tops of the bulkhead formers with the fronts butting against the K1 keel former at the prow.
The lower chines were assembled in the same fashion and when dry are glued and set into the slots in the bulkhead formers.
Finally the stern former F7 is added and the whole assembly set aside to dry.
The hull is quickly taking shape now and even at this stage is very rigid and yet remarkably light.

Various small pieces, S8 & S9, are added to bulkhead former F7 that create the curvature of the stern which in turn support the outer skin, in addition there are some pieces that are fixed either side of the keel as laminations to add strength and to support the bottom skins where they meet the keel.

The prop shaft has yet to be delivered so I used a length of 8mm plastic rod temporarily in its place so that I could fit the keel laminations K5 around the shaft.

I chose to fit additional pieces on either side of the keel between the bulkhead formers to support the bottom skins and some extra pieces of balsa were fitted at the stern to support the outer skin, and in a similar fashion some extra pieces fitted either side of the keel formers at the prow.

Once all these pieces were firmly set they need to sanded to the profile of the hull, and this is best done with abrasive paper around a sanding block. I made a sanding ‘plate’ from some 6mm MDF with a sheet of 120 grit aluminium oxide abrasive paper glued to it to form a perfectly flat sanding surface and this was used to chamfer and flatten the bulkhead, keel and chine formers so that the outer skins would lay as flat as possible across them.

I also fitted some pieces of ply under the centre section of the box around the keel to reinforce the area under where the motor mount will be as I don’t think the balsa base of the ‘box’ will take screws firmly.

The next step will be to fit the side skins and then the hull will really take shape.

The side skins are made from 1.5mm ply and require a slight curve towards the bow and I found that this is best achieved by gently warming with a heat gun, which seems to relax the glue between the laminations, so that when bent to a gentle curve and allowed to cool will set the shape very easily.

The skins are supplied are slightly oversize and when the skins have been bent they can be roughly clamped to the hull and then marked for trimming, also while the skin is clamped in place the positions of the bulkhead formers can be marked on the skin.

Back on the bench the skins were trimmed with a craft knife (with a fresh blade) and then drilled with a 1mm bit to allow pinning through into the formers and strakes.

Aliphatic glue was applied to the hull formers and strakes and the skin positioned so that the drilled holes were in correct alignment with the formers and then clamped and pinned in place.
Because the skin was pre-formed to the hull shape the clamps and pins are not under much tension and the hull was set aside while the glue set.

When the port skin had fully set overnight, the pins and clamps were removed and the skin was finished with a plane to remove the excess down to the strakes and the F1 former at the bow and the sanding ‘plate’ used to finish it all off.

Where the side skins meet at the prow there needs to be a wide flat area for the external keel to butt to and so the trimming and sanding there will be done at a later stage before the bow blocks are fitted and carved.

The process was repeated for the starboard side skin and while the glue was setting I gave some thought to a means of concealing some of the wiring that needs to run the length of the hull 🤔.

Because I am keen to conceal as much of the wiring as possible I have decided to place the battery at the bow and the operational equipment at the stern, the engine on the original boat was central and covered with a soundproof box and this is convenient as the motor can be positioned and concealed in the same way.

This means that some of the wires will have to run the full length of the boat and the easiest way to conceal them is to run them beneath the ‘box’ around which the hull is formed, and this needs to be done before the bottom skins are fitted.
Holes were bored through the bulkhead formers under the port side of the hull and battery cables were run to the stern where the ESC will be and three motor wires from the ESC run to the centre, emerging near the motor position.

For good measure I put in a servo cable and a separate draw wire just in case I needed to put more cabling in for any additional features, perhaps working navigation lights?
Satisfied that I had all the cabling in place I was able to fit the bottom skins starting with the starboard side first.

Before doing so I put a very slight 'hollow' in former F1 which should help blend the shape of the the hull where the ply skins meet the balsa blocks that will to be carved and shaped to form the bow.
This can be seen in the last picture.

The process of forming and fixing the skins is the same as for the side skins but in addition to the pins holding the skins in place I used some brown polythene ‘packing tape’ to pull the skins tightly against the bulkhead formers and strakes.
The packing tape has a very high tensile strength and is ideal for this, and of course cheap and easy to remove.

Once the aliphatic glue had set thoroughly overnight I removed the excess from the skins with a small block plane and finished them with my sanding plate.

Before I fit the skin at the stern I will have to arrange the water cooling for the ESC, with the pickup just behind the prop and the outlet on the stern.

I’ll cover that aspect in the next update.

The HobbyKing ESC I’m using has the facility for water cooling and as it will be in an enclosed location without any free ventilation it seems sensible to utilise this feature.

To keep the water circuit as short as possible I will put the pickup just behind the propeller and the exhaust on the stern but as the boat has a bulkhead just in front of the stern skin I need to make an access hole through it to allow me to secure the nut on the stern skin.

I made a hole through the bulkhead large enough to get a socket on the nut and reinforced the hole with a ply plate, similarly I reinforced the inside of the stern skin where the outlet passes through it.

When I was happy that the arrangement worked and I could attach the hoses and securing clips easily I glued and pinned the stern skin to the hull.

The water pickup is a standard one that is readily available but it’s supplied with overly large and ugly fixing nuts, the inside one is of no consequence but I thought that the outer one needed smartening up so I put it on a threaded rod and locked it in place with another nut and put that into the chuck of a drill and used a file to re-shape the nut to a pleasing taper….who needs a lathe......😜

I had to reduce the height of the inner keel former as the pickup tube is not long enough to get a good fixing with the internal nut, as the inner keel is balsa I fitted a ply reinforcing plate to spread the load.

The last ‘photo shows the location of the ESC, main battery fuse and receiver. The hoses will be secured to the ESC with spring clips throughout.

I found that the silicone tube I use tends to kink rather easily if the radius of a bend is too small and I found it necessary to form a tight spring coil around the piece that loops the water back through the ESC to prevent this happening.

Because I need access to the wiring at both ends of the boat I formed the framework of an opening at the bow to make the dummy hatch into a real hatch.

In a similar way a hatch was formed in the rear deck which will give me access to the wiring, rudder servo and the ESC cooling.

It’s going to be quite tight to get all that into the cavity under the rear deck but I’ve done a test fit and it will all go in but will involve some ‘keyhole surgery’ through the rear hatch opening when I get to the stage of installing all of the running gear…🤓.

Both of these decks were glued and pinned in place and some packing tape used to pull the decks firmly onto the frames.
The side decks were also trimmed for best fit and secured in the same way and when all was dry and set a small hand plane was used to trim them flush to the hull sides.

The next stage will be to fit the balsawood blocks at the bow and shape them to the hull…..it’s the tricky bit I’ve not been looking forward to…😟

The bow of the boat has a compound curve and to create the shape a single block of hard balsa is supplied in the kit, although in my pre-production prototype this had to be formed by laminating some pieces of thick balsa together to the required size.

Rather than laminating up a single block separately I did the laminating and glueing in situ on the hull to ensure a solid tight block, and after the glue had cured I set about shaping it.
Initially I used a razor saw to roughly remove the surplus at the sides and bottom and then began the process of shaping it to the final form. My sanding plate proved invaluable for the final stages of making the block flush with the hull sides.
The underside of the blocks were very carefully shaped with a combination of the sanding plate and abrasive paper around a series large round formers.

I was careful not to just use abrasive paper over fingers as this can create grooves and unevenness in the soft balsa. I had already created a concave shape in the bulkhead former F1 and with the ply bottom skins in place it was relatively easy to extend the contour into the bow blocks being very careful to ensure symmetry on both sides.
A line was drawn on the blocks that extended the curve of the hull strakes to define the shape.
I also used the outer keel as a template throughout the shaping process to make sure that I was not removing too much material. it would be very easy to remove too much material so it pays to do this slowly and carefully, checking all the time for symmetry.

Finally when I was happy with the shape I formed a slight flat on the blocks for the outer keel to sit on, using a back light helped greatly with this, and the whole hull was given a light sanding with a detail sander.

The prototype kit was supplied with keel components made from thick balsa which would easily be damaged in use so I recreated this in thick ply laminations to the required thickness and shaped it so that it was completely flat and square on the inner edges and with a curved profile on its outer edges.
The keel was checked for fit on the hull throughout so that only a minimum amount of filler would be required to blend it to the hull.
It was fixed in place with epoxy adhesive and firmly pinned until it fully set and very little filler used to finish it.
The kit, which is available now from VMW, includes a single piece bow block and ply keel parts as standard, which makes construction much quicker and easier.

I’m glad that bit is over and I’m very pleased with the result.
Next stage will be glass fibre cloth and epoxy resin….

I used glassfibre cloth and epoxy resin successfully when building my 46” RAF Crash Tender and I chose to do the same with the Police Boat.
See: https://model-boats.com/builds/view/23951 for the Crash Tender blog.
The application of the cloth and resin serves to strengthen the hull enormously and produces a completely watertight hull, and after additional coats of resin are applied and sanded between coats
resulting in a surface that is absolutely smooth and the perfect substrate for the subsequent paint process.

With the benefit of my previous experience and greater confidence working with these materials I used a ‘fast’ hardener with the resin which gives a working time of 30 minutes and a much shorter curing time where previously I had used a 90 minute ‘slow’ hardener.

The basic process is to cut the cloth roughly to shape with a good margin of overlap and then use masking tape along one edge so that after the resin has been brushed onto the hull the cloth can just be lifted over onto the resin. I then lightly brush the cloth into the resin and push the cloth into any tight angles, without any further resin on the brush, until the weave of the cloth is filled and there are no air pockets and the cloth is completely flat. At this point DO NO MORE as the resin will start to harden and any more fiddling with it will cause the cloth to lift and bubble, less is definitely more in this instance.
The resin should cure completely overnight and can be trimmed with a sharp blade.

I tend to cover a hull in five stages, as there are five ‘faces’ to the hull and thus it’s a five day process for me, this may be time consuming but I think the results are worth the effort.
I will brush on two further coats of resin when the rubbing strakes and gunwales have been added, this will completely fill the weave of the cloth to create a nice flat surface but it’s essential to rub down each coat after curing.

All the materials were bought from ‘Easy Composites’
https://www.easycomposites.co.uk

Before I can apply the final coats of epoxy on the hull I need to fit the two rubbing strakes.
I started with the bottom rubbing strake which runs along the chine where the side skins and bottom skins meet. The strakes meet the external keel at the bow and also extend across the stern.
I used a length of square section of obeche which needed a gentle curve towards the bow, rather than steam the wood I soaked it in water for a few minutes to soften it and then used a heat gun while bending the strip gently to the required curve.

When the wood had cooled and dried the bend was set I did a test fit and drilled very fine holes through the strip so that the modelling pins I use to hold the piece in place would not split the wood.
A 30 minute epoxy was used to fit the strakes on both sides of the hull and stern.

Above this bottom strake is a second rubbing strake and this also meets the keel at the bow and runs across the stern, I used a broader and thinner obeche strip for this and it was prepared and fixed in the same way.

The final pieces to fit will be the gunwales which run around the hull where the sides meet the deck but I will not fit them until I have planked the deck.

The prop-shaft, coupling and motor mount that I ordered from ModelBoatBits has arrived so it seems a good a good time to make up a supporting wedge for the mount to fix to.

I do have a rigid brass motor alignment aid that I used when building the Crash Tender but do you think I can find it in the workshop?....nope! 😡

I expect it will turn up when I need it least! 🤞

Not wanting to waste time I used a length of heat shrink tubing over the motor coupling to make it as rigid as possible, a trick I had seen done elsewhere, and this enabled me to position the motor on its mount in the desired position and measure the angle that the mounting wedge needs to be made to.

I used an offcut of beech that I had in the workshop which I cut to size and then shaped it on the rotary sander that I bought in Lidl, fantastic piece of kit !!.

The wedge was then drilled to take the nylon motor mount and also the fixing screws that pass through the beech block, through the balsa base of the box and into the ply reinforcing plate that I put in during early construction of the hull.

After cleaning up the hole through the keel the prop-shaft was keyed with some abrasive, smeared with some epoxy and then pushed through to mate with the motor coupling. I used the excess epoxy resin around the shaft inside the hull and used some packing tape to stop it running out when I inverted the hull to seal the lower end.

A quick spin on the motor confirmed that the alignment was spot-on and the hull set aside while the epoxy set.

The next step will be to plank the deck.

The kit I’m constructing is a pre-production prototype and consequently it does not have the ‘laser etched planking’ feature that has been subsequently introduced in the final production kits on the ‘upper’ deck and the ‘well’ deck.

This is of no concern to me because I think I prefer to do my own planking anyway but I do have to do a bit of preparatory ‘laying out’ of the deck pattern to ensure that it’s symmetrical and laid in a pleasing fashion.

I have chosen to use 1.6 mm x 9.5 mm obeche hardwood strip-wood (from SLEC) for this with a thin black plasticard caulking between the planks. This is what I did when I constructed the VMW Fire Tender and the result was very effective and visually pleasing.
Obeche has a pleasing grain, takes stain very easily and is also considerably cheaper than mahogany which I feel would be far too ‘dark red’ when finally lacquered.

Because I wanted an outer curved plank around the hull edge I had to cut this from 1.6mm obeche sheet to the correct shape and width as it would be impossible to bend a strip to this extreme curve. These also needed a section trimmed out to allow the bow gunwales to be positioned correctly.

Once both sides were cut and shaped I could then form the ply gunwales to the correct curve by my heating and bending process and glued them down to the deck. I understand that on the production kits these gunwales are now incorporated into the side skins which will make the construction a bit easier.

The remaining outer planks on the hull edges were made from straight lengths of obeche but required some easing cuts so that they could be bent to the curve of the hull. Hopefully these cuts will not be too noticeable in the finished deck.

When all the edge planks were glued in place I temporarily laid out the obeche planking strips with a thin strip of black plasticard as caulking and all held in place with masking tape. The centre plank was arranged to lie over the centre line from bow to stern. The setting out of the planks in this manner confirmed that the layout worked as intended and so I began fixing down the planking from the centre plank of the hull outwards with a fast bonding superglue and the process proved to be quite quick to complete. The side deck planks were equally straightforward but did require some to be carefully shaped in a tapered fashion at each end to fill the remaining gaps.

The rear deck was also planked by working out from the centre plank and thankfully the planking layout matched and followed the bow deck planking perfectly.

The surplus plasticard ‘caulking’ was then trimmed flush to the planks with a very sharp chisel and the entire deck rubbed down with my sanding plate until it was all perfectly smooth.

For those building this model that don’t feel confident enough to do ‘real planking’ will probably want to make use of the laser etched planking on the ply deck panels to achieve a similar result with very minimal effort, but I quite like the challenge of doing it the hard way and the benefit of a slightly better finish.

With all of the deck planking fitted I can now fix the rubbing fenders to the hull where the deck meets the hull sides.
These are made from 6.5mm x 5mm obeche strip steamed and bent to shape and fixed with 30 minute epoxy, unfortunately the strips are not quite long enough to do this in one piece even with the rear rubbing fender in place at the stern so a join has to be made which I hope won’t be too conspicuous. The fender tapers in height from bow to stern and the piece that runs across the stern was made from 5mm x 5mm obeche. All the fenders were ‘pilot drilled’ for the pins that held them in place while the glue set.

The complete hull was then given a further two coats of epoxy resin with a rub down between coats and a final ‘polish’ with 240 grit paper used wet. The resulting finish is perfectly smooth and ready for paint.
The front and rear hatches were fitted with the coamings that will hold the hatches in place.

The rotary disk sander that I bought from Lidl is certainly proving to be very useful in shaping small parts at this stage of the construction. I note that it’s back on sale now (Feb 2019) so if you have the opportunity and £30 ….go buy yourself one!

The next stage will be to assemble the cabin.

The superstructure of the launch is very simple, and from a practical point it was designed to give the crew a large field of view across the river and fast access in and out to deal with emergency situations. Consequently the construction is quite basic and would be quite straightforward if permanently fixed to the boat but this cabin needs to be removable to give access to the battery location and motor.

Because of this the cabin needs to be a strong and rigid structure of its own and yet fit invisibly to the rest of the model, it’s also only a three sided structure because of the open access at the rear and that alone will be a point of weakness to the structure.

I started by glueing the internal bracing strips to the insides of the deck sides as described in the instruction sheet and some strips that form the base for the sides that sit on the deck, these also needs to be sanded to an angle to sit flush on the deck and also create a vertical face that some further strips are fixed to which meet the inside walls of the deck well.

Although all the parts for the cabin are accurately laser cut I chose to do a dry ‘test fit’ using pins and elastic bands to hold the side panels and roof braces together.
This 'dry fit' was neccessary because I had previously decided to fit false obeche panels over the balsa sides and floor of the well to get a better surface to finish in the way I intend, balsa does not have any pleasing grain and does not look good even when stained, so I pinned all these panels in place to account for their addition to the internal dimensions of the well deck.

When I was happy that the geometry of the side panels and front window panels was correct I glued all the roof braces in place and added some reinforcing fillets to make it more rigid, temporary braces were glued across the front and rear of the assembly to keep the whole thing rigid and square during further assembly. The pins and rubber bands were used to pull in the side panels while the aliphatic glue set.

All of this was done with the cabin on the boat so that the correct ‘dry’ fit converted to a permanent fit.

Part 2 will continue with the addition of the front window panels and roof.

Before the front window panels can be added to the cabin structure they need to be shaped to follow the curvature of the front deck as much as possible and then glued together with a reinforcing strip on the back of the joint.

Unfortunately I made an error 😡 when shaping and jointing the parts and had to make some new panels from some thin ply that I had to hand using the old panels as a template, hence the roughly cut window apertures in the ‘photos.

This was unfortunate but I feel better for the confession 🙏.

The new window panel was then glued and pinned to the front of the cabin assembly and left to dry while in the meantime I used my hot air gun to heat and bend the roof panel to the correct curvature.
The roof panel was then pinned and glued in place on the cabin framework and when dry was trimmed with a small plane and the front window panel trimmed down to the roof profile.

I added some additional framing and bracing pieces at the base of the front window panels and a ‘shelf’ which will form part of the dashboard inside the cabin.
I also added some extra framing and an end panel at the rear of the roof and a thin square bead was fitted around the base of the cabin sides and front to improve the appearance where the cabin meets the deck.

Before adding further detail to the cabin I used some Z-Poxy finishing resin on the roof panel to strengthen it and provide a better surface for the paint finish which comprised of one coat of white primer, two coats of gloss ‘Appliance White’ and two coats of gloss lacquer, all with a thorough rub down between.

When all the paint had dried and hardened I gave the exterior of the cabin a first coat of ‘Antique Pine’ stain.

Next I will add some detail to the deck.

Some obeche coaming strips were added to the insides of the well deck and a piece was added at the rear which notches into the side coamings, this required shaping to the curvature of the deck so I wound some masking tape around a pencil to the required diameter and marked a line on the coaming to sand the profile down to. This piece won’t be fixed in place until I have added some internal detail in the rear of the well deck.

Some thin strip was fitted along the sides of the deck which form part of the ‘treads’ that run the length of the cabin sides, these were glued and pinned in place after the edges and ends were rounded.
At this point I applied some ‘Antique Pine’ stain to the bulwarks, rubbing fenders and deck strips.

The position of the treads that run along the deck for the length of the cabin sides were marked by taking a measurement from the plan and transferring this to the deck strips. The tread angle from the plan was determined to be 68 degrees using a digital angle finder (another little bargain find in Lidl for less than a tenner 👍👍) and position marks pencilled on the deck.
I chose to mark and apply these treads as per the model that is in the National Maritime Museum which I’m following to recreate my version of the Police Launch.
These ‘photos have been very helpful in detailing this model.

They can be seen here: https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/67590.html

I used some temporary spacer strips along the cabin sides and deck strips and then cut and shaped each tread individually to fit in the desired positions, all the treads were fixed using a couple of dots of superglue making sure that no glue got onto the deck surface as CA and aliphatic glue does affect the way the obeche accepts the wood stain as I discovered when I did some ‘colour tests’ earlier.

The whole deck was then given a very light rub down with a fine abrasive pad before the first of several coats of ‘Teak’ stain was applied.

The contrasting colours of the Antique Pine and Teak stain works well on this model and is in keeping with the wood colours of the NMM model that I’m using as a reference.

EDIT…..I have just noticed that the digital angle finder and digital callipers are back on sale at Lidl on 3rd of March for £9.99 each…….still a bargain 😁👍

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/MiddleofLidl.htm?articleId=20539

I want to keep the motor cover as compact and in proportion as much as possible so I drew up a design to visualise it and get some practical working dimensions, it also needs to enclose the prop shaft and coupling, and the MT60 connection for the motor so there will not be very much free air space inside.

Because of this the motor cover will need some ventilation as the brushless outrunner motor can’t be water cooled and I don’t want to fit a fan, so the side panels of the box will need some gauze covered slots so that any heat generated can escape, assisted (perhaps) by the rotation of the motors outer ‘rotor’ creating some air movement. I don’t intend to run this boat very fast so I’m hoping that the motor will not get too hot anyway🤞.

I transferred the dimensions of the side panels from my drawings to some 1.5mm obeche panels and cut the side pieces to size and cut out the ventilation slots, some framing pieces and cross braces were fitted internally and the whole assembly glued and clamped together.
Additional framing was added to support the part that covers the shaft and coupling and obeche panels applied to these. Some finishing details were applied around the base and the top to improve the appearance.

The internal framing will later incorporate some small cylindrical neodymium magnets that will hold the motor enclosure down on the deck, I’ll fit these later when the deck floor has been fitted.
The mesh is some of the stainless steel mesh that I had used in the water pickup tube on my RAF Crash Rescue Tender hoses, and this was cut to size and epoxied in place.

The completed enclosure was finished with the same Teak stain as the rest of the boat.

Next up will be an enclosure at the rear to conceal the control electronics.

Whilst I don’t think I’m going to need to cool the motor it got me thinking that it may be a useful experiment to see if the ‘Stick A Fan Blade On The End Of The Rotor’ idea would actually work 🤔
So while waiting for some glue to set on another part of the build I decided to rummage through the junk PC bits box and find an old fan of a suitable size, and I did indeed have on that would fit the bill 😀.

I broke away the outer fan casing to release the motor and blades and then set about separating the fan blade, which proved fairly simple.

The fan blade has an overall diameter of 45mm which is ideal and there’s a moulded-in centre mark so I used a step cutter to open up a hole to 10mm and then a tapered hand reamer to carefully open up the hole to about 11mm which is the diameter of the end bearing stub on the rotor.

The fan was then pushed onto this motor stub until it seated flush on the wide and end of the rotor can and is a very tight friction fit so it doesn’t need any more than that to hold it.

I don’t have a dial gauge but I can tell by eye that the fan is perfectly centred and true and so it shouldn’t cause an imbalance 🤞.

The motor turns clockwise when viewed at the fan end which means that the fan would be pulling air through the side vents , through the stator and around the rotor and would need to exhaust through a new panel cut into the end of the motor enclosure.

The existing motor enclosure still fits perfectly over the motor and its fan and wouldn’t need any other modification than the extra opening and mesh.

So in theory this arrangement will give forced ventilation and cooling of the motor in the event that there is a heat problem.

In practice I’ve yet to wire up the motor to the ESC so I have not been able to run a proper test to check it actually works but I’m pretty confident of it.

This motor cooling arrangement could prove useful to others when faced with a similar situation which I why I decided to conduct the experiment...... and validate my theory.

Just keep your fingers away from the fan blades…..😨

The original boat had a wide and deep seat at the back of the well deck and this is an ideal place to conceal the fuse, ESC and receiver.
I started by setting out the components and marking an area sufficiently big enough to accommodate them all with room for the associated wiring and plumbing (water cooling for the ESC).

A framework of obeche strip was formed on the floor and sides in such a way that the top and front panels of the cover would be flush with the frame, the side frames were also built out so that the cover would be narrow enough to clear the coamings on the sides of the well deck.
The rear panels and floor of the enclosure are 1.5mm obeche panels, the rear one with cut-outs for the wiring to come through, both were given a coat of Teak stain before being glued in place.
The cover ‘seat’ was made from a framework of obeche strip and panels with bracing pieces at each end to add rigidity and it fits neatly into the frame, some finishing detail was also added to this.
This was also given a first coat of Teak stain.
The cover will be held in place with small neodymium magnets.

I’m grateful to mturpin013 for commenting that he considered using the propeller adaptor supplied with the Turnigy motor as it prompted me to retrieve mine from the box and adapt it to secure the fan on the end of the motor.

I cut off the threaded shaft from the prop adaptor and the end was ground flat and then I placed it on the end of the motor stub and used a scriber through the bolt holes to mark the positions on the flange of the fan.

The fan was then removed and the holes drilled through and opened up to 3mm and then it was a simple matter to put the fan back on the motor and attach the new piece to the motor using the three 2.5mm cap head screws which are supplied with the prop adaptor.

I think this is a far better ‘engineering’ solution to securing the fan to the rotor than a spot of CA.

Because the addition of the fan was so straightforward and effective I have decided to implement it on the model anyway so I cut an opening through the end panel of the motor cover and put some stainless steel mesh over that to finish it.

The motor is now connected to the ESC and I have done some tests with the motor running and I’m delighted to report that there’s a very healthy airflow through the motor cover 😁👍.

It turns out that my modification is not unique at all and credit is due to reilly4 who did something similar to the twin motors on one of his boats long before I came up with the idea. He posted a ‘photo of his boat when replying to mturpin013 on the subject of servo mounts.

Take a look at the motors in his picture!

There’s no putting it off any longer, I need to start painting the hull before I do any more on the boat so the hull was given a final rub down with a fine abrasive and then the deck and gunwales carefully masked off.
I used some panel wipe to thoroughly de-grease all the surfaces and then put the hull in the ‘spray booth’ on my turntable and applied two coats of Halfords grey primer. I left this for a couple of days to dry and harden off before setting it on my bench.

The next stage involves levelling the hull fore and aft and side to side so that the waterline can be established. Fortunately the well deck floor is meant to be perfectly level when the boat is afloat and at rest and this is the datum I used to level to using a couple of spirit levels.
The rough waterline points were measured off the plan and transferred to the hull to be used as approximate starting points for the waterline.

For my previous build I bought a self-levelling laser to indicate the waterline so this was brought out for the same purpose.
The laser level was placed on another workbench a couple of metres away and gradually raised with packing pieces until the projected line agreed with the rough position marks I’d made on the hull and then finely adjusted until the line was correct and pencil marks made at intervals along the projected line.

The process was repeated for the other side of the hull and then also marked across the stern, fortunately the stern line and bow markings joined up accurately confirming that the levelling was spot on.
Good quality low tack masking tape was then applied all around the hull and the area above the line masked off with a couple of layers of newspaper.

The exposed hull was then keyed with a fine Scotchbrite type pad and cleaned off with panel wipe before two coats of Halfords red oxide primer applied as the anti-fouling.

The ‘box’ of the prototype I’m building is made of balsa wood, later production models are produced in ply and have the planking lines laser etched on the floor panels, and as balsa doesn’t take stain particularly well I have used separate obeche panels to line the box internally that can be finished with the Teak stain that I’m using.

This does, however, mean that I can apply the deck lines using a black indelible marker pen and incorporate some detail lines around the motor housing.

I started by cutting and shaping two obeche panels that join along the centre line of the deck and fit neatly around the motor mount and prop-shaft, then I used some tracing paper over the panels to make a test pattern for the planking lines.

When I was happy with the layout of the lines I first applied two coat of Teak stain to the panels, and when that was dry I used a .8mm pen to mark the deck lines, the ink takes a while to dry fully and I found it all too easy to smudge some lines 😡 which had to be very quickly taken off with a dampened cotton bud and re-applied.

After 24 hours the ink had fully dried and was impervious to smudging and resistant to removal by any means (except a solvent).

The floor panels were then glued down to the balsa floor with an even spread of aliphatic glue and weighted down over all of the area as there was a tendency for the panels to curl and lift.

Each side panel was made in one piece and then separated into two parts to make the fitting easier, the join will be covered with a vertical detail strip, and they were also stained before being glued and clamped in place. No lining detail was applied to the side panels as I’ll do this with other surface applied pieces later but only in the area outside of the cabin.

All the panels were given a couple of coats of satin lacquer to enhance and protect the finish.

Time to make a decision on what colour the hull should be…🤔
The instructions say ‘Navy Blue’ but that just doesn’t look right, just too light.
In the ‘photos of the splendid model in the National Maritime museum the hull appears to be black while in the colour video clips on YouTube it appears dark, possibly black, but in keeping with the ‘boys in blue’ nature of the vessel I think a very dark blue would be more appropriate. I have seen this on some other Thames Police Launch models that I have admired and it looks ‘right’ so to speak.

Just to convince myself I generated a ‘colour palette’ in Photoshop to make a direct comparison between black and a couple of deep blues that looked like possible candidates.
I used the RAL co-ordinates of the two blues in question to generate the colours and decided on RAL 5004 as the favourite and then ordered a couple of 400ml rattle cans from a custom paint supplier, I chose a satin finish rather than full gloss.
They arrived a few days later and I did a spray test on a scrap piece of board with the anti-fouling below with a white waterline between and was very pleased with my choice.

The red oxide was carefully masked off and the area to be painted cleaned off with some panel wipe on a clean paper towel, then into the spray booth for the first light coat. This painting was done during a very cold spell in early January 2019 and I took the precaution of taking the boat indoors the night before to keep it warm and also pre-heat the workshop before bringing it out, I also used my hot air gun to gently warm the hull prior to spraying and then again after the first coat was applied.

I’d like to think that this helped the process and prevented the seasonal temperature and humidity levels causing any adverse effects on the finish. The second coat was applied about 20 minutes later and the solvents flashed off by the heat gun again. I’ll add that the heat gun was used at a distance of about two feet and the booth is fan vented to outside and…. ‘I am that masked man’.

Back on the bench and with the masking removed the paint finish looks very satisfactory to me, I just need to apply the white ‘Trimline Tape’ for the watermark to finish the hull before spraying with a couple of coats of satin lacquer.

Then it will be ready for it’s first showing at the London model show at Ally Pally on the St. Albans Model Engineering Society stand alongside my RAF Crash Tender.

More on that ‘Trimline Tape’ later……🤕

All the glazing on the cabin is fixed except for the forward windows on each side which are on runners for the crew to slide open.

The glazing supplied in the kit for these sliding windows is 1mm Perspex so I made some runners by laminating two strips of 1.5mm obeche strip, one of which was shaped beforehand to be narrower and thus forming a rebate for the window to run in. The upper and lower runners for each side were made in this way.

All the runners were then given a couple of coats of Teak stain before they were epoxied to the cabin sides, a temporary window template was used to get the spacing and positioning correct during this stage. A vertical piece was also made, with a rebate too, as an end stop which was also fixed in place.

The template was then used to produce the actual windows which both have a handle glued to the outer rear edge with canopy glue and both run very well but with sufficient friction in the runners to hold them in although I will fit a removable retaining pin at the ends of the runners to prevent them from sliding out completely 😠.

The two white metal navigation lights supplied in the kit were painted with some metallic silver acrylic and the lenses painted red and green, these fix onto some obeche pieces fashioned and formed to complete the lights, then both were Teak stained and epoxied to the top window runners.

In part 2 I will tackle the handrails for the cabin roof 😁.

Some hardwood dowel is supplied in the Vintage Model Works kit for the handrails that would look perfectly acceptable for most builders but as I’m going a bit overboard with the detailing of my boat I chose to fabricate mine differently to look a little more authentic.

This involved selecting some obeche stripwood of suitable dimensions and carefully measuring and marking out the positions of the supporting legs and the spacing between them. Again I used some ‘photos of the NMM model as a guide for this.

Fortunately I had previously treated myself to a vertical stand accessory for my Dremmel drill and I used this as a milling machine with the addition of a suitably sized sanding drum and an improvised ‘fence’ attached to the base of the stand. After making a test piece I also chose to attach a vacuum cleaner hose to the stand to extract the dust as the process generates quite a lot!

Milling out the recesses in the obeche strip was a remarkably quick process but the subsequent hand finishing using abrasive paper glued around a dowel and some abrasive pads took a great deal longer to achieve the final profiles.

I was very pleased with the final result and so I applied several coats of Teak stain before hand drilling a 2mm hole in each of the supporting legs to take a plasticard rod which was superglued in place.
These form fixing spigots that will enable me to easily fix the rails through the roof without using epoxy or superglue on the roof surface but on the underside of the roof instead.
The legs at each end of the handrails were drilled to take 1mm rods as the legs are a bit smaller.

The rails were then laid out on the cabin roof and with the aid of some masking tape the position of each plasticard rod was marked and then the drilling centres marked with an indent through the tape onto the roof.
The fixing holes were all hand drilled through the roof and the handrails pushed into place before being secured with a drop of superglue on the underside.
When set the excess plastic rod was cut flush with the roof panel.

The finished result is very pleasing 😀 as seen in the last pic along with a sneak preview of the searchlight.

The fittings supplied with the kit include some bollards for the deck but I’m less than impressed with them and decided to make my own by adapting some brass handrail fittings intended for locomotives.

As readers of my blogs will know, I don’t have a lathe but there’s a lot that can be achieved using a horizontal bench drill and files.

The first job was to reduce the diameter of the base to fit inside a couple of steel washers that were superglued together and then to the reduced base to form a large flange for the bollard. This was then spun in the drill and files used to radius the edges and blend them into the base.
Some brass rod was then used to form the cross piece of the bollard, some tape the same width of the ‘ball’ was used to protect the centre section and the outer end reduced to a taper with a file, finally the pieces were reduced to the correct length and the ends rounded off.
The cross piece was then superglued into the bollard base and then all four were given a coat of etch primer and then two brushed coats of Tamiya gunmetal grey.

There is another bollard on the foredeck and this is just a simple wooden post with a brass cross piece, it’s fixed through the deck into the underlying structure by a brass pin.

The mast on the drawing supplied with the kit is rather simplistic and I want to reproduce the mast in a more authentic style so with reference to the NMM ‘photos of the museum boat I set about modelling it.

The timber mast is held on the cabin roof in a metal socket and I produced this from some 6mm & 7mm brass tube and some brass bar for the base.
The tubes were cut to length and assembled onto a brass bar which was previously drilled to take a 3mm bolt with some flux paste between the parts and a nut and bolt used to clamp the parts together. This was all silver soldered together, the bar cut off and the temporary bolt removed and the base reduced to a circular form by filing and the piece cleaned and polished.
The mast is a short length of 6mm dowel with one end turned down to 5mm to fit inside the brass base tube.

The mast head is formed from some obeche hardwood shaped to replicate the original with a 6mm hole bored through the base piece to take the 6mm dowel mast. I used a spare 6mm porthole that I had surplus to a previous project as a supporting flange that also adds an interesting detail to the mast.
Lastly a fillet was added between the mast and the base and the whole piece was then finished with a few coats of Teak stain.
A filed down the head of a 3mm bolt so that it would fit into the brass tube and superglued in place before glueing the dowel mast into the base.

A plasticard disc was made to fit between the mast base and the roof and reinforcing plate fitted to the inside of the roof for the securing wing nut to bear on.
The light fitting is standard part available from various suppliers, mine came from RB Model in Poland along with some other brass fittings for this boat.

All of the tall fittings on the roof will be made to be removable for safe storage and transport.
Next up...the Searchlight.😁

When I built my RAF Crash Rescue Tender my brother made a searchlight base for me on his lathe from a drawing I supplied and at the time I asked for an additional one in case I made a hash of it. Fortunately I didn’t need it at the time and still had the spare one in my bits box and so it made sense to use this for the searchlight on the Thames Police Boat.

The new base was made in much the same way as the previous one, the detail is in my Crash Tender blog:

https://model-boats.com/blogs/23951

The white metal casting of the searchlight body is very well made and only requires a little fettling to remove casting lines and as this searchlight will not be a working one I used the prototype lens from my previous searchlight build to fit into base. A short plastic rod was push fitted into the lens base with a disc of silver foil at the lens end to enhance the reflection in the optical path. This piece acts as a support for the lens instead of the LED unit and is glued into the body which I had previously painted black internally.
A perspex disc was made to cover the front of the lens, and a ‘tri-form’ front piece was made from some 22mm copper pipe and some brass wire which was soft soldered together.
Before the front was glued in place all the parts were sprayed with a grey etch primer and a couple of coats of satin lacquer.

The finished assembly is fixed to the roof with a 3mm threaded stud and a wing nut to make removal easy with a circular plasticard base between the two.

The twin horns are from RB Model in Poland and they just needed to be sprayed with etch primer and lacquer before fixing to the roof.
The boat is now looking more like the real thing, just a little more detailing to add including the life ring, roof aerial, flagstaff and a few more deck fittings. 😊

Another cabin roof fitting is the radio aerial, this also needs to be detachable for transport and storage.

For the base I cut and formed a disc from some brass bar and ‘turned’ it to the desired size and profile in my makeshift 'lathe' (a Black & Decker horizontal drill stand) and then the centre hole was enlarged to take a 4mm brass tube which was silver soldered into the base. The piece was then cleaned up with some abrasive paper and wire wool.

A short piece of 3mm brass rod was then threaded and soft soldered into the bottom of the base to form the fixing stud.

For the aerial rod I used a short piece of 3mm tube and some 2mm brass rod, the tube fits inside the base tube and the rod in the centre, and this was soft soldered together into the base. Finally a piece of 3mm tube was soldered to the end of the rod and turned to shape it into a ball. The rod was also given a slight taper with files and abrasives.

The whole piece was sprayed with grey etch primer and when dry the base was brush painted with some black acrylic and finally some clear satin lacquer finishes off the part.
😀

The aerial fixes to the roof through a white plasticard base with a 3mm wing nut.

This is another fitting that needs to be detachable and the construction is very similar to the others.
The base was formed from some brass bar and ‘turned’ to the desired size and profile on my ‘Black & Decker Bodge lathe’ and then the centre hole was enlarged with a needle file at an angle to accept a 5mm brass tube which was silver soldered into the base. The piece was then cleaned up with some abrasive paper and wire wool.

A 2mm brass nut was press fitted into the base of a short piece of 4mm brass tube and soft soldered in place and this this piece was inserted into the base assembly to act as a threaded retainer and spacer. I continued making the flagstaff from some brass rod with a 2mm threaded end and some tubing to make up the diameter but having mostly completing it I decided that it just didn’t look in keeping with the boat ☹️....... and so I made a new mast from some 4mm beech dowel which I sanded to a taper and made a rounded plasticard ‘finial’ top button 😊......... much better.
A short piece of 2mm rod, threaded at the end, was cut to length and inserted into the end of the new wooden flagstaff and the whole piece was finished with three coats of antique pine stain.

Some thin brass wire was formed into a double loop and fitted around the top of the mast to form the upper fixing for the halyard and a short length of 5mm tubing with a brass wire loop soldered into it forms the lower fixing for the halyard.

The flagstaff base was painted with etch primer and two brushed coats of gunmetal grey before being epoxied into an angled hole bored into the rear deck.

The flag was made for me by Mike Allsop of Scale Flags & Ensigns to the correct dimensions for the boats scale. The halyard is actually elasticated cord finished at each end with some thin white heat-shrink tubing with another short piece at the bottom of the ensign to keep it in position.
The elasticated cord is in tension and as it’s fixed to the flagstaff top and bottom the whole assembly can be easily screwed in and out of the base with the ensign attached, the threading of the flagstaff is also set so that the halyard and ensign always ends up on the trailing edge 😁.

As a police boat would need to have some boat hooks for retrieving flotsam and various ‘things’ 😝 from the river I adapted some of the same ready-made ones that I had used previously on my fire boat, they are available on eBay from ‘Battlecrafts’.

They come in a set of three with various hook ends and are nicely made from hardwood dowel with white metal end fittings.
I started by making up two paper templates, one for each side of the boat and drew out a layout of the wooden frame parts that make up the detail panels that will hold the boat hooks.

These were made mostly from obeche strip but with the topmost wide strip made from 1.5mm ply. The parts were laid on the template and a spot of superglue used to fix the pieces together. After a couple of coats of Teak stain they were epoxied to the side walls.
The boat hooks were trimmed to length and a brass loop end made for each and then both were finished with pine stain and the white metal ends brush painted with gunmetal grey.
Some thin brass sheet was cut and formed into retaining hooks with a threaded rivet to secure them to the deck sides.

The finished result fills a bare area on the well deck walls quite effectively.😁

Continuing to add detail to the model, the two white metal fairleads supplied with the kit were cleaned up with a file, sprayed with an etch primer and painted gunmetal grey to match the bollards. They are fixed to the deck with a brass pin and a dab of epoxy and the pin head blended in with a spot of gunmetal grey.

The Kent windscreen was made in a similar way as the one on my fireboat, the outer ring is a small slice of 20mm plastic conduit that was further reduced in thickness on my sanding plate and then painted black. The screen was shaped from some clear perspex and fixed into the ring with some canopy glue. I used a 2mm brass bolt as the centre fixing, the head of the bolt rounded to a dome in my makeshift lathe, this was also painted black. The whole assembly was then fixed into the port windscreen with the bolt, no additional glue is necessary.

The front sliding window on the starboard side is held in the closed position by a small threaded brass ‘stud’ with a ring on the head while the window on the port side is intended to slide back to an open position so another stud was fitted further back. This is to allow access to an internal cabin feature that I’m developing😉.

Two slightly larger studs were fixed to the front of the cabin on each side and a further two fixed into the deck near the rear of the cabin.

All of these brass fittings came from RB Model in Poland.
https://www.rbmodel.com/index.php?action=products&group=001

The last two pictures are of the model that's in the National Maritime Museum that I'm using as a reference for detailing.

A very brief description of something that took about two weeks to make 😐

The life ring is made from two laminations of balsa which are glued together with the grain at 90 degrees to avoid warping and then shaped into a ‘doughnut’ using various grades of abrasive paper to achieve the correct profile. This was quite a time consuming task to perform by hand and eye satisfactorily but there’s no other way to do it unless you can turn one on a lathe.

The ring was then given a couple of coats of sanding sealer, primed and finally given two coats of gloss white. I chose to use some red ribbon and white cord to finish off the piece and these were simply fixed in place with a few dabs of superglue.

The ring needs to be held on the roof by some means so I cut and shaped some thick plasticard fillets which are fitted with a retaining peg, these were painted with white gloss and set aside to dry while I marked out a template to put on the roof as a guide for drilling the holes for the pegs.

The fillets were superglued to the roof and the pegs glued and trimmed on the underside.
The life ring is a nice tight fit on the retaining fillets but I will also secure it with a couple of small screws through the roof and into the underside of the ring so that it is detachable along with all the other roof fittings.

Next up will be the anchor 😁

There’s no anchor supplied in the Vintage Model Works metal fittings kit and I thought it would be good to include one as an additional deck feature, again following the NMM model that I’m using as a reference.
First I made the chain hawse pipe from some styrene tube by heating and bending it in a former and then selecting a small part of it that has the correct degree of bend. This was then fixed to a circular plasticard flange and the base drilled to take a small brass shackle pin that the chain will fix to. A 2mm brass nut secures this pin to the hawse pipe. A couple of brushed coats of gunmetal grey finishes the piece. The deck was drilled to take the shackle pin and this piece is screwed into the deck without any need for glue.
The anchor is a Hall type anchor from Cornwall Model Boats and this needed a bit of fettling with files to improve the finish, it was then sprayed with grey etch primer and a couple of coats of satin lacquer. I drilled a 1mm hole through the bottom of the anchor for a retaining pin.
The chain, also from CMB, if fixed to the shackle pin in the hawse pipe with a slightly larger link made from some brass wire.
I made a retaining piece for the anchor to sit in that incorporates the anchors retaining pin, this is made from some scraps of obeche strip superglued together but I had to file a recess into it so that the anchor would sit correctly.
This was finished with some antique pine stain and a lacquer finish and fixed down to the deck with a couple of 1mm threaded brass rivets and a dab of superglue for good measure. Another brass wire link connects the chain to the anchor and the short length on chain will be tacked down to the deck with a spot or two of glue.
In retrospect the anchor and chain look very slightly too small in scale, the dimensions on the CMB site are a little misleading ☹️, but overall the piece looks quite good on the deck 😀

I wanted to install a main power switch on the model so that the battery could be pre-installed and connected ready for the lake but at the same time the battery needed to be easily replaceable at the lakeside. The problem I faced was where I could fit and conceal a switch for this, and have it easily accessible too.

The answer, I decided, was to disguise the switch as a cabin feature that I intended to include in the model detailing anyway, and the boats steering wheel was the ideal candidate.

I started by sketching out a design that would incorporate a battery box and switch as a complete sub-assembly and with a workable design I began by constructing the battery box from 3mm ply.

The switch mounting was formed from 1.2mm aluminium plate for which I made up a card template to determine the right size and angle of bends required to obtain the ‘slope’ of the top panel. Once formed and drilled the switch plate was fixed to another ply panel on one end of the box and fixed in place with screws.

I found the XT60 connector mounting PCB on the Hobbyking site and it is perfect for my needs so the alloy mounting plate was drilled with clearance holes for the connecting pins and the heat shrink tubing that further insulates the soldered connections, and the PCB is fixed to the plate with a couple of M3 screws and nuts.

The switch is rated at 12v 25A and I disassembled it to remove the operating toggle so that I could remove the taper on the shaft and reduce it to a 4mm diameter to take a brass tube that forms the new steering column.
The plastic steering wheel was picked up from the SHG stand at the Thornbury model show and is a perfect scale for the boat and it’s a perfect fit inside the brass tube too.
The switch contacts were bent to give some clearance for the wiring. A cautionary note with these switches, don’t solder any wires directly to them as the heat from the iron will also melt and deform the plastic case too. This causes the internal contacts to move and lose their firm ‘snap’ contact and potentially compromise the switch rating. I discovered this very quickly but thankfully I had ordered two switches, as they are not expensive, so I had an immediate replacement that was then wired with spade connectors.

The switch assembly was finished with another XT60 connector that mates with the power cable that goes back to the ESC via a 15A blade fuse. The whole switch and battery assembly is fixed to the deck floor with three woodscrews and so the whole assembly is removable for maintenance or modification if required.

When I glazed the cabin I made the port sliding window movable (but with an end retaining stop) so that I could quickly access the ‘Steering Wheel’ switch without having to remove the cabin from the boat. A battery change will involve that but as the whole cabin is retained by six small but very powerful neodymium magnets this is very quick and simple matter anyway.

The whole battery box and switch will later be ‘boxed in’ with a false control panel with a throttle control and dials, and this will also be on magnetic retainers, with the battery section as a separate removable part for an easy battery change.

All of these features I had considered and planned at an early stage and so implementing them was quite straightforward.🤔🤓

Getting closer to completion now, along with the control panel cover I need to re-shape the brass rudder and also fix the waterline tape problem that has really annoyed me!😡 More on that in a later update.😁

I did consider making my own rudder from brass tube, rod and sheet but I realised that a standard commercially available rudder could be easily modified to simulate the rudder type used on the real boat.

I ordered a ‘large’ size standard rudder from ModelBoatBits along with the prop shaft and prop that were needed for the model and then set about modifying the rudder.

As the blade of the rudder is held in a slot in the rudder post by a couple of small 'rivets' it was an easy job to just punch them out and separate the parts. The rudder blade was then rotated 90 degrees and a single new hole drilled through to fix the blade in the new position.
I re-shaped the blade a little to more of a rounded profile before fixing it back onto the shaft with the original rivets. I also used a small piece of brass rod to fill the exposed original rivet hole and all the parts were soft soldered together.

The new rivet was filed down flush with the blade and the whole part burnished and finished with a coat of clear lacquer.

A rather nice feature on the NMM model are some brass trims on the rear pillars of the cabin and I found a ‘photo of one of the real boats that clearly shows the trims so I decided to add these to my model too.

The brass sheet I used for this is only 0.3mm thick and can be fairly easily be cut by scoring heavily with a strong knife blade and then snapping. The cut edges show no sign of deformation and are easily smoothed and finished with a file.

The strips are about 6mm wide and each strip was trimmed to fit the upper part of the cabin pillars and the lower curved portion formed by careful bending over a suitably sized former.
They are held in place with a few spots of superglue and after a final cleaning with fine emery paper were brush painted with a couple of coats of clear lacquer.

There are a couple of grab handles on the front and rear of the cabin roof that I thought I’d like to add to my model.

Making them from wood seemed rather difficult so I made them from some plasticard rod that I heated and bent over a former to the right size and shape. They were then rubbed down with an abrasive to roughen the surface so that the wood stain that I’ve used elsewhere would stick properly and two coats of Teak stain did the trick.

Superglueing them directly to the cabin would not be a very firm fixing so I drilled some 2.5m holes correctly spaced so that the handles could be pushed into place and I used some canopy glue as a fixing so that any excess glue could be wiped away easily.
When the glue had set I gave the handles a final coat of stain using a very fine brush, a steady hand and an old pair of eyes 🤓.

Just the spray deflector on the roof to fit now.

The final piece of cabin detail to add was a spray deflector rail.

Making the piece was reasonably easy as it just involved shaping a length of obeche strip into a triangular section and then gently steaming and bending it to as much as a curvature as possible without snapping it.

Because the roof is also a convex shape the strip had to be further shaped while held in a bent form to flatten the centre slightly so that it would sit correctly on the roof over its length.
When I was happy with the shape and fit I stained the piece with two coats of Teak stain.
Fixing the piece down onto the roof was the bit that worried me most as I couldn’t drill any holes for retaining studs as I had done with other roof details for fear of splitting it and so superglueing it directly to the roof was the only way, and I had to get it right first time. 😓

For this part I had to enlist another pair of hands 🙌 to ensure it stuck down properly first time so after choreographing and rehearsing the action a few times I applied a very thin bead of superglue to the part, bent it to the required curvature and placed the ends on the corners of the roof and then rotated the piece down onto the painted surface of the roof at which point the other hands pushed it down firmly in place and held for a minute or more until the bond was complete.

Much to my relief 😊 it was a successful process and I was then able to trim the ends back with a sharp blade and paint the cut ends with a bit of Teak stain😁
The cabin is completed…….finally.😊

I don’t know what it is about successfully applying a white waterline to a hull that gives me so much grief.
I had problems with getting a good result with my Crash Tender and similarly with this model too.
The common denominators are;

1. Me.
2. The hull.
3. Trimline Tape.

On both occasions I’ve used this tape it has refused to adhere properly where it crosses the spray rails and on this occasion it also lifted in lots of places along the hull sides so that when the finishing lacquer was sprayed on it got behind the tape, lifted it more, and looked awful 😞 and this was despite meticulous cleaning and keying of the surface before application.
Without meaning to do an injustice to the product I suspect that it’s just the way I was applying it and perhaps I had greater expectations of the product.
Consequently I had to remove all of the tape and flat down the step in the lacquer coat 😠 and consider another approach, perhaps masking tape and white paint or an alternative tape.
I decided to persist with the ‘tape’ method so I found a seller on eBay that could supply very thin PVC car body ‘coachlining’ tape in any colour or width to order, so I bought 10 metres of 4mm in white for just a couple of quid.
What a difference!😊
This stuff went on beautifully straight, sticks like the proverbial and has stayed firmly in place over all of the contortions of the spray rails and hull.
Furthermore when the hull was re-lacquered with a clear satin finish it behaved impeccably….success at last.😀👍

The switch and battery box is a sub-assembly that can be easily removed for repair or modification, and the ‘steering wheel’ power switch works really well but it all needs to be concealed in an enclosure that’s in keeping with the rest of the boat.

Firstly I built up a framework on the walls and floor around the battery box to support an enclosure, this was designed with a sloping top panel to make it look more like a control and instrument panel than just a box. The obeche strips were angled and bevelled and just superglued in place.

The enclosure was then built up on this framework to get the shape and angles right and all the internal edges reinforced with obeche strip with some bracing pieces at each end to add rigidity.

A slot was cut into the top panel to allow for the throw of the power switch and the edges of this were also reinforced with some more obeche strip.

Some external framing detail was added and also a handle to assist with removal as the 4mm diameter neodymium magnets that were set into the framing hold it very firmly in place. I uses a total of 6 pairs of these magnets and I now think that 4 pairs would have been more than sufficient and hence the need for a sturdy handle to get a good grip!

(I did a count up of how many magnets are on this model and in total there are 42 of varying sizes 😲)

Three of coats of Teak stain were applied to all the bare wood to finish it off.

I may add some ‘instrumentation’ detail on the top panel around the steering wheel and possibly a throttle control just as a finishing detail.
BECC do some nice round decals and bezels for this but they’re a bit pricey for just the few that I need so this extra detail might be an unnecessary extravagance!

The last thing to make is a presentable looking display stand for exhibition and display so it’s off to the drawing board to sketch something out ✍🤓.

I decided that an instrument panel would enhance the appearance of the ‘Steering Wheel’ power switch so I made up a panel to go around the switch onto which I could put some dials and a throttle control.

In my previous blog update I discounted using the very nice but pricey BECC transfers and looked for an alternative, Doug (RNinMunich) kindly sent me a .pdf of some instruments but the resolution was very poor when printed out. So after a bit of Googling I found a picture of some real commercially made instruments that was quite high resolution, and importantly, printed very nicely even when scaled down to the sizes I needed. I used a premium glossy photo paper in my Canon Pixma printer for this.

The panel was made from some 2.0mm ply from the scrap box with the edges bevelled for neatness and after two coats of Teak stain they were ready to have the dials applied.

The dials were cut out from the printed sheet as best as possible with a new scalpel blade, not easy I might add, as they are so small that you can’t really make a continuous circular cut so it was a case of nibbling round the edges until it was an acceptable shape. That was a test for my old eyes 🤓 I can tell you.
The edges of the dials were blackened with a black ‘Sharpie’ pen before sticking down onto the panel with a light smear of canopy glue.

The throttle control is just an offcut of Obeche carved and shaped and with a short piece of styrene tube and a pin head for the lever, painted in gunmetal grey it doesn’t look too bad. I used a small white ball headed pin in the final assembly.
The instrument panel was given two coats of satin lacquer to protect the dials before the throttle control was stuck down and then the whole piece glued down onto the battery cover, and I also painted the aluminium switch panel black so it was less conspicuous through the slot.

I had arranged the height of the wheel so that the battery cover can only be removed with the switch on the off position as a safety consideration. Also there’s room inside the battery box for a low voltage alarm attached to the battery balance connector too.

Viewed through the cabin window the instrument panel looks quite acceptable and it all helps to disguise the purpose of the steering wheel and the switch can be accessed easily through the sliding cabin window without removing the cabin.

Quite pleased with that 😁

With the annual club exhibition coming up I made a display stand for the boat, the construction is just the same as the one I made for my RAF Crash Tender.

I had to make some card templates of the hull at the bow and stern to get the end panels the right shape and transferred these to a pair of drawings allowing for a strip of 10mm thick neoprene foam to cushion the hull.

The end panels were cut from 10mm ply and the side rails are 8mm softwood set into the end panels and just glued and pinned.

After a thorough rub down I gave the stand three coats of a Mahogany stain before fitting the self- adhesive neoprene strips.

I had a pair of engraved brass plaques made up with a description of the boat, one for each side and Mike Cummings at Vintage Model Works very kindly supplied some VMW stickers to go on each side 👍 and there are some Model-Boats.com stickers on there too 👍😀.

I’m just contemplating the construction of a transport and storage case for this model and a recent thread on this site has been very helpful in highlighting some strong but lightweight plastics that may do the job.

"Re: Constructing 'The Box'
11 hours ago by Skydive130 ( Warrant Officer)

"I have just taken delivery of this kit, and the joy opening the box and getting that wafting smell of fresh wood, nothing like it!

Having check the excellent quality laser cut wood against the parts list, it seems that the basic box built first is now supplied as 6mm and 5mm ply instead of balsa. Can I presume this is a change to the test kit? I am not worried about the extra weight, less ballast at the end.

My only other issue now is trying to source the HobbyKing SK3 840kv motor you have used in your beautiful model as it’s currently out of stock in the Uk and EU, living only 3 miles from HobbyKing UK means I can order and sometimes pick up same day. Does anyone else have an suitable alternative recommendations for the motor if I cannot source an SK3. I could order from HobbyKing in HK as showing in stock, but the postage is high?"

Hi Skydive130
I have moved this to the end of my blog so that others can see it easily.

Yes, I understand that the box is now all ply construction, I doubt if the added weight will be any problem at all.
Re: the HK motor, speak to Mike at VMW I'm sure that he or his colleague Alan can suggest a suitable alternative.
Good luck with the build and ......Please Do A Build Blog 😁👍.
Robbob.